Method and apparatus for representing an interest priority of an object to a user based on personal histories or social context

ABSTRACT

A method and apparatus assigns a quantative variable to each object (or set of objects) in a collection available to a user. The quantative variable is referred to as the Interest Priority Value (IPV). The IPV defines a range of states of the object, between ‘accessed’ and ‘unaccessed’, and is calculated based on one or more attributes of the object. A object with the highest IPV is the most ‘unaccessed,’ and the object with the lowest IPV is the least ‘unaccessed.’ The IPV may be used in a visual representation of the collection of objects, thereby permitting a user to readily identify and obtain those objects of greatest interest to the particular user.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present application is a Continuation under 35 U.S.C. 120 ofcommonly assigned prior U.S. application Ser. No. 10/753,689, filed Jan.8, 2004 in the name of Michael Muller, now allowed.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates generally to the field of object retrieval andmore particularly to a method and apparatus for identifying an objectthat is of interest to a user.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Many professions require that the individuals who engage in theprofession maintain an up to date knowledge of different aspects oftheir practice. For example, investment bankers may need to identifycurrent market trends and fund performance, technical researchers needaccess to the most current research in their field of expertise, andengineering development teams may need access to technicalspecifications and performance analyses. Each individual obtainsinformation from a wide variety of sources including email, newsservices, technical forums and web-browsing, among others. Theinformation may accumulate on a daily basis, and it is often difficultfor the professional to sort through the accumulated information andprioritize the reading of the information. While various servicesinclude mechanisms for indicating to the user that he or she has alreadyread a document, little else has been done to assist the user's documentselection process. It would be desirable to identify a method whichwould assist an individual in identifying which documents in acollection are the highest priority documents given the individualspersonal knowledge needs.

Further, users often choose the documents that they read throughknowledge of what other users have read. In some cases, a group or teamof users may wish to distribute their reading so as to provide broadcoverage of a large number of documents. In yet other cases, one usermay wish to read what other, influential users have read, so as to beable to anticipate questions from those other, influential users. Inthese senses, reading takes place in a social context. It is desirableto assist users in making reading choices based on these social factors.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

According to one aspect of the invention, a method of sorting objectsincludes the steps of calculating an interest priority value for eachobject in a collection of objects responsive to at least one attributeof the associated object, where each interest priority value representsa relative importance of the corresponding document to an accessingindividual compared to other documents in the collection. The methodalso includes the step of storing each interest priority value in adatabase. With such an arrangement, the interest priority values may beused to identify one or more objects in the collection that areimportant objects for access by the user.

According to another aspect of the invention, a data structure stored ona computer-readable medium in a computer processing system is described,the data structure including an entry for each object in a collection ofobjects, each entry storing an interest priority value for eachassociated object in the collection responsive to at least one attributeof the associated object, where each interest priority value indicates arelative importance of the corresponding object to an accessingindividual compared to other objects in the collection.

According to a further aspect of the invention, an apparatus forcalculating an interest priority value for at least one object in acollection of objects accessed by a user includes an attribute databasefor storing an attribute indicator for each object in the collection andinterest priority calculation logic, coupled to the database, forassigning an interest priority value to the at least one object inresponse data in the attribute database for all of the objects in thecollection.

According to a further aspect of the invention, an apparatus forindicating that at least one object in a collection of objects is ofinterest to a user includes an attribute database for storing anattribute indicator for each object in the collection; interest prioritycalculation logic, coupled to the database, for assigning an interestpriority value to the at least one object in response to data in theattribute database for all of the objects in the collection; and adisplay, coupled to the interest priority calculation logic, forproviding an icon associated with one or more of the objects in thecollection, and having a visual attribute that is set according to theinterest priority value of the one or more objects.

A computer system for use by a user, the computer system having agraphical display device, where the user is capable of accessing acollection of objects, the computer system comprising an icon, stored ina memory of the computer system, the icon associated with one or more ofthe objects in the collection, and having a visual attribute that iscontrolled according to an attribute of the one or more objects relativeto other objects in the collection, wherein the visual attributeindicates an attractiveness of the one or more objects to the user.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates one embodiment of an object interest indicationsystem according to the present invention, wherein the object interestis set according to temporal input;

FIG. 2 is a flow diagram illustrating an exemplary process by whichobject interest priority values may be set using the system of FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 illustrates a second embodiment of an object interest indicationsystem of the present invention, wherein object interest is determinedaccording to inter-object similarity;

FIG. 4 is a flow diagram illustrating an exemplary process by whichobject interest priority values may be set using the system of FIG. 3;

FIG. 5 illustrates a second embodiment of an object interest indicationsystem of the present invention, wherein object interest is determinedaccording to inter-object similarity;

FIG. 6 is a flow diagram illustrating an exemplary process by whichobject interest priority values may be set using the system of FIG. 3;

FIG. 7 illustrates a second embodiment of an object interest indicationsystem of the present invention, wherein object interest is determinedaccording to inter-object similarity;

FIG. 8 is a flow diagram illustrating an exemplary process by whichobject interest priority values may be set using the system of FIG. 3;

FIG. 9 illustrates an embodiment of the present invention thatincorporates features described in FIGS. 1, 3, 5 and 7 above; and

FIGS. 10A-10D illustrate several exemplary visualizations that may beused to represent the different interest priority factors described withreference to FIGS. 1-9.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

According to one aspect of the invention, the prior art difficulties ofdetermining which objects in a collection are of the most interest to auser seeking to expand his or her knowledge base are overcome by thepresent invention. The collection of objects may include a variety ofdifferent data entities, including documents, modules of program code,images, multimedia clips, database records, and yet other types ofsharable objects. For exemplary purposes only, the below descriptionillustrates the use of the present invention with document objects.

A method and apparatus will now be described wherein one or moreobjects, or documents, is assigned a quantitative variable, referred tohereinafter as the Interest Priority Value (IPV). The IPV in essencedefines a range of states of the document, between ‘read’ and ‘unread’.For the sake of this application, it will be assumed that a documentwith the highest IPV is the most ‘unread,’ and the document with thelowest IPV is the least ‘unread.’ Other types of access, in addition toreading the object, are also embodied herein, including hearing (foraudio object) or viewing (of video/visual objects), and thus theconcepts of ‘unread’ or ‘read’ may be viewed generically as ‘accessed’and ‘unaccessed.’ In one embodiment, the IPV may be used in a visualrepresentation of the collection of documents, thereby permitting a userto readily identify and obtain those documents of greatest interest tothe particular user.

As will be described, according to the present invention, documents canhave varying degrees of ‘unreadness,’ based on a variety of differentattributes of the document. The values of the attributes are specific tothe particular user, and thus the IPV for a document will vary from userto user. In addition, each user may choose to use different attributesin the calculation of IPVs for their documents. The below descriptionwill describe individual attribute types, which can be used either inisolation or in combination depending upon the particular desires of theuser.

Referring now to FIG. 1, one embodiment of a document interestindication system 10 is shown coupled to a collection of documents 12.The system 10 receives various meta-data for each document includinginformation on when the document was last accessed, and by whom. In theembodiment of FIG. 1, system 10 includes, for each user, a user accessdatabase, such as user access databases 14 and 16. The user accessdatabases 14 and 16 store, for each document available to the user,information regarding the user's access history for the document. In oneembodiment, the information could include a read indicator, set when theuser reads the document, and a time stamp also set when the user readsthe document, although other methods of representing this informationmay alternatively be used. The user access databases 14 and 16 areaccessed by Interest Priority Value (IPV) logic 20, examines the accesshistory information for each document for each user, and calculates aInterest Priority Value (IPV) for each document. In one embodiment, theIPVs are assigned to documents in decreasing order from those unreaddocuments that have been in the collection the longest to those unreaddocuments that have recently entered the collection. According to oneaspect of the invention, the temporal attribute based on length of timethat the unread document has remained in the collection is referred toas the ‘Available Time’ attribute. As shown in FIG. 1, when IPVs arecalculated, they are transferred to an IPV data structure 22 or 24,which are accessible by the individual users.

The temporal attribute information provided by the user access databasesmay also be used to set the IPV in another manner. For example, if ithas been a long time since the user has read a document, the ‘unread’state of the document may increase from ‘read’ to some value in the IPVrange. The amount of time that would cause this to happen is userdependent, as some professionals have a greater ability to retainknowledge than others. Thus, the user access databases may be used tocalculate an Elapsed Time attribute (E) since the document was read.This attribute may be used in calculating the overall IPV for thedocument.

Referring now to FIG. 2, a flow diagram illustrating steps that may beperformed to calculate IPVs for documents based on the temporalinformation in the user access database will now be described. At step100, the system awaits an event trigger, which causes the update of theIPVs for one or more documents. The event that triggers IPV update couldbe any event, including but not limited to an access of any document inthe collection by any user having access to the document, a time out ofa pre-determined time period, or a change in group membership of userswho have access to any of the documents in the collection. The exactevent that is used to trigger the update is not a limitation of thepresent invention.

At step 102, for each document that is in the user collection, thesystem 10 IPV calculation logic 20 retrieves access information from theuser access database. As stated above, in one embodiment the accessinformation includes a time stamp, and the Available Time attribute(A)is calculated for each document relative to the retrieved time stampsof the documents. In another embodiment, (indicated by dashed steps 103and 104) the time stamps are used calculate the Elapsed time attribute(E) for each read document. If the value of E exceeds a predeterminedthreshold, document becomes unread. At step 105, a range of IPVs areassigned to the unread documents, (with read documents being assignedthe lowest possible IPV).

Thus FIGS. 1 and 2 illustrate a method and apparatus by which temporalinformation may be used to defined an Available Time and Elapsed Timeattribute, each of which may be used together or separately to set anIPV for a given document. The IPVs are then stored in an IPV datastructure, and may be used to highlight to documents of most interest tothe particular user.

Referring now to FIG. 3, an alternative embodiment of a documentinterest indication system 40 is shown to include document compare logic30. The document comparison logic 30 may be used to compare the contentsof a particular document with other documents in the collection. Thecomparison can be performed using a variety of methods known to those ofskill the art, including but not limited to text analysis, word count,cluster word count et. al. The method used to determine documentsimilarity is not a limitation of the present invention. However,typical document comparison tools are capable of providing a numericalindicator of how closely the documents match. This indicator is used inthe present invention to identify two different similarity attributeswhich may be used in the IPV calculation. The first similarity attributeis referred to as Collection match (C), and is used to indicate howsimilar a document is to other documents in the collection. Incalculation of the Collection attribute, each unread document iscompared for content match with every other document in the user'scollection. The more similar the document is, the less unread thedocument is, since there is less novel content in the document.

The second similarity attribute is referred to as an Ego-CentricCollection attribute (eC), and indicates how similar a given document isto other documents that the user has already read. If the eC indicatesan extremely high level of similarity with material already read by theuser, the unreadness factor of the document may be decreased, so thatthe user can go on to other documents that are more likely to providenew information. In an alternative embodiment, the user may wish to readexhaustively on a single topic. In this case, if the document is similarto a document already read by the user, this may indicate that the userhas a great interest in this subject matter, and thus the unreadness ofthe document may be increased. The level of similarity which would causethe user to determine that the document was largely redundant may be avariable that is programmable by the user.

Referring now to FIG. 4, and exemplary flow chart provided forillustrating the user of the comparison logic 30 in calculating the IPVwill now be described. At step 110, the system awaits an event trigger,which causes the recalculation of one or more IPVs. At step 112, thedocument is compared against other documents in the user's collection tocalculate the Collection match attribute. At step 114, the IPV may beassigned based on the Collection match attribute. In an alternativeembodiment (illustrated by dashed steps 116 and 118), each unreaddocument is also compared against each document that has been read bythe user. If it is determined that there are similarities betweendocuments previously read by the user, and the document, the IPV isupdated accordingly.

Referring now to FIG. 5, a third embodiment is shown of an interestindication system 50, including a user relationship database 18. Theuser relationship database 18 is used to set a Relationship attribute(R) for each document. The relationship database 18 identifies certainindividuals that have a relationship to the user, including, forexample, authors that are of interest to the user, superiors to theusers, co-workers of the user, or anyone indicated by the user as ofinterest. When a document is written by one of the individuals in therelationship database, the ‘unreadness’ value of the document increases.Thus, the relationship factor permits a user to flag content that is ofinterest to the user based on the source of the document.

Referring now to FIG. 6, a flow diagram is provided for illustrating thesteps taken in assigning an IPV based on the relationship databasecontents. At step 120, an event triggers the update of the IPV. At step122, the meta data for each document that identifies the source of thedocument is compared against the individuals in a users' relationshipdatabase. The user may prioritize the individuals, such that certainindividuals will obtain a higher ‘unread’ attribute based onrelationship than other individuals. At step 124, IPVs are then assignedto the user documents based on the relationship attributes.

Referring now to FIG. 7, a fourth embodiment of an interestidentification system is shown to include a group membership database.The group membership database stores, for a set of one or moredocuments, the identity of individuals in a group who have access to thedocuments. In many working environments, teams of users share access toand responsibility for a common set of documents. For example, documentsD2 and D3, illustrated in dashed lines, may form a set of documents thatis accessed by a common group. When the set of documents is large, itmay not be necessary for each member of the group to read every singledocument, rather it is merely important that the knowledge exists withinthe group.

Thus, the present invention includes a Social Filtering—sharedresponsibility (Ss) attribute, which is calculated using the groupmembership database 45. The Ss attribute indicates how many othermembers in a user's group have read a given document. If many members ofthe group have read the document, the document is less unread to theparticular user.

In some embodiments, the group membership database may be anorganizational chart, where certain members in different ‘leaves’ of thechart are defined to be ‘teams’ in the group. In such an embodiment, thedata from the group membership database may also be used to define aSocial Filtering—unique responsibility (Su) attribute. The Su attributeis calculated by evaluating the group database differently; rather thanlook at ‘teams’ the database is scanned to identify clients and managersof the user. Any document that is shared by a client or a manager of theuser, and that has been read by the client or manager, is more ‘unread’to the individual user. Thus, this attribute is used to enable the userto ensure that their knowledge base is consistent with superiors andclients, to enable them to answer questions when uniquely called upon.

Referring now to FIG. 8, a flow diagram is provided for illustrating amethod used to calculate IPV using the group information 30. At step130, the trigger event causes IPV calculation to begin. At step 132, theaccess information is retrieved for each document in the set ofdocuments being accessed by the user. The access information identifiesthe documents in the set have been read by the members in the group. Atstep 134, it is determined how many other members have read thedocument. Depending upon the number of members that have read thedocument, the Ss attribute will vary from more unread to less unread. Inan alternate embodiment, at step 136 it is determined whether the personthat has read the document is important to the user (i.e., a superior,or client, etc). Depending upon the responses to the questions, the IPVis set accordingly.

Thus, a number of embodiments have been shown where a variety ofattributes are used to set the IPV values for given documents. Accordingto another embodiment, the IPV value may be directly set by a thirdparty, such as a superior who wishes the user to learn the contents ofthe document. In such an embodiment, the attribute is referred to as theLeadership attribute (L) and may be set through the manual input path 26directly by a user's superior (in the figures represented as User 2).

Although the embodiments have been shown separately, it should beunderstood that any combination of the attributes may be used by a userin controlling document access. For example, referring briefly to FIG.9, an embodiment of the interest indication system 80 is shown includinguser access databases 14 and 16, group membership database 45, userrelationship database 18, and document compare logic 30. In oneimplementation of the embodiment of FIG. 9, the IPV may be calculatedusing below equation I:

IPV=A+C+E+eC _(—) R+Ss+Su+L  Equation I:

Where

A is the Available Time attribute

C is the Collection match attribute

E is the Elapsed Time attribute

eC is the Ego-centric collection math attribute

R is the Relationship attribute

Ss is the Social-filtering—shared attribute

Su is the Social filtering—unique attribute

L is the Leadership attribute

It should be noted that the equation I may be modified such that theattributes are weighted, with the individual weights of each attributebeing specifiable by the user. In one embodiment, this specification isperformed programmatically. In a second embodiment, this specificationis made through simple controls in a graphical user interface. In thismanner, a particular user can give higher priority to Relationship datathan other users. Equation II below illustrates the modification ofEquation I to include weights.

IPV=A*W _(A) +C*W _(C) +E*W _(E) +eC*W _(ec) +R*W _(R) +Ss*W _(Ss+Su*W)_(Su) +L*W _(L)  Equation II:

Thus, a variety of methods and apparatus' have been shown and describedfor assigning Interest Priority Values (IPVs) to user documents.According to another aspect of the present invention, the IPVs may beused to visually represent the attractiveness of the document to aparticular user by translating the IPV value into varying ranges ofvisual attributes. The visual attribute may be used to indicate a totalIPV, or alternatively may include features representing each of the IPVattributes. One exemplary embodiment of a visualization icon that may beused to surround a document name, or alternatively a cluster ofdocuments, will now be shown and described with regard to FIGS. 10A-10D.However, it should be understood that the present invention is notlimited to the particular visualization shown in FIGS. 10A-10D. Rather,any visual representation that uses the one or more attributes todifferentiate document interest to a particular user is equallyapplicable to the present invention.

Referring now to FIG. 10A, an icon 200 is shown to include a firstbordered area 202 and a second bordered area 204. The first borderedarea may be used to visually represent the overall ‘unreadness,’ or IPVvalue. The second border may be used to indicate the Relatedness of thedocument. The representations of the values of the various attributesthat go into calculating the IPV may be represented in a variety ofways. For example, the overall value of the IPV may be indicated byvarying the width of the border 202 of the icon. Thus, the documentassociated with icon 210, which has a relatively wide width, is moreunread than document associated with icon 216. If the Availability (A)attribute is used for IPV calculation, in FIG. 1, the documentassociated with icon 210 is ‘older’ than the document 216.

In one embodiment, and icon may include different features for eachdifferent IPV attribute. For example, in the icons of FIG. 2, the valueof the Relatedness attribute is indicated by internal border 204. Inicon 200, the Relatedness border extends partially around the icon, butdoes not extend into space 206, thus indicating to a user that thedocument associated with the icon is sourced by an author that the useris interested in. In FIG. 10B, is can be seen that neither document 210or 216 are sourced by an author that is identified as Related to theuser. However, document 212 does show an indication of Relatedness.

Referring now to FIGS. 10C and 10D, it may be important to known ifothers have read a document that the user has not read (i.e., one of theSocial Filtering attributes). In FIG. 10C, additional visual featuresare added to the icon to represent the Social Filtering attributes. Forexample, the exterior border is used to indicate the Available Timeattribute for the user. Bars 220 and 222 may be added to the icon torepresent which document has been read by others. Thus, the documentassociated with icon 226 has received more attention than the documentassociated with icons 224 and 228.

FIG. 10D illustrates an embodiment of an icon that may be used torepresent social filtering attributes of a variety of different groups.For example, each group could be represented by a differently positioned(or colored) bar on the icon. In the embodiment of FIG. 10D, threegroups, group M (management), C (clients) and T (team) are shown. Eachgroup has accessed each different document 230, 232 and 236 in differentamounts. The document associated with icon 236 has been read by someclients, a portion of the team, and most management. The documentassociated with icon 232 has been read by nearly all of the managers,clients and team members. The visual bars assist the user in identifyingthat the document 236, which seems to have garnered a large interest, isa document that should be given priority.

Accordingly, FIGS. 10A-10D have illustrated several methods ofrepresenting the various document attributes to a user in a visualmanner that assist the user in prioritizing the reading of thedocuments. However, the present invention is not limited to theparticular icon or arrangement of visual features shown in the figures.Rather, the present invention may be used to drive visual featurerepresentation in a variety of manners to indicate document attributesto a user, and thereby simplify a user document selection process.

As mentioned above, the embodiments described herein have used theconcepts of “documents” and “readness” for exemplary purposes. Thepresent invention may also be used with other types of objects (thusreplacing the concept of “documents”), such as modules of program code,images, multimedia clips, database records, and yet other types ofsharable objects. The present invention may correspondingly be used withother types of access experience with those objects (thus replacing theconcept of “readness”), such as familiarity, “viewedness,” “heardness,”review, or yet other types of experience.

Accordingly, a method and apparatus has been shown and described forsimplifying user document access by determining and representingdocument attributes to the user. The method and apparatus has been shownand described with regard to several figures, some of which includefunctional blocks which are shown for exemplary purposes only. FIGS. 2,4, 6 and 8 are flowchart illustrations of methods, apparatus (systems)and computer program products according to an embodiment of theinvention. It will be understood that each block of the flowchartillustrations, and combinations of blocks in the flowchartillustrations, can be implemented by computer program instructions.These computer program instructions may be loaded onto a computer orother programmable data processing apparatus to produce a machine, suchthat the instructions which execute on the computer or otherprogrammable data processing apparatus create means for implementing thefunctions specified in the flowchart block or blocks. These computerprogram instructions may also be stored in a computer-readable memorythat can direct a computer or other programmable data processingapparatus to function in a particular manner, such that the instructionsstored in the computer-readable memory produce an article of manufactureincluding instruction means which implement the function specified inthe flowchart block or blocks. The computer program instructions mayalso be loaded onto a computer or other programmable data processingapparatus to cause a series of operational steps to be performed on thecomputer or other programmable apparatus to produce a computerimplemented process such that the instructions which execute on thecomputer or other programmable apparatus provide steps for implementingthe functions specified in the flowchart block or blocks.

Those skilled in the art should readily appreciate that programsdefining the functions of the present invention can be delivered to acomputer in many forms; including, but not limited to: (a) informationpermanently stored on non-writable storage media (e.g. read only memorydevices within a computer such as ROM or CD-ROM disks readable by acomputer I/O attachment); (b) information alterably stored on writablestorage media (e.g. floppy disks and hard drives); or (c) informationconveyed to a computer through communication media for example usingbaseband signaling or broadband signaling techniques, including carrierwave signaling techniques, such as over computer or telephone networksvia a modem.

While the invention is described through the above exemplaryembodiments, it will be understood by those of ordinary skill in the artthat modification to and variation of the illustrated embodiments may bemade without departing from the inventive concepts herein disclosed.Moreover, while the preferred embodiments are described in connectionwith various illustrative program command structures, one skilled in theart will recognize that the system may be embodied using a variety ofspecific command structures. Accordingly, the invention should not beviewed as limited except by the scope and spirit of the appended claims.

1. A method comprising: calculating an interest priority value for eachobject in a collection of objects responsive to at least one attributeof the associated object, wherein each interest priority value indicatesa relative importance of the corresponding object to an accessingindividual compared to other objects in the collection, wherein theinterest priority value of a given object in the collection for theaccessing individual is automatically calculated based on the number ofother individuals in a group to which the accessing individual belongsthat have accessed the given object, such that the interest priorityvalue of the given object is automatically decreased as the number ofother individuals in the group to which the accessing individual belongsthat have read the given object increases; and storing each interestpriority value in a database.
 2. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising: wherein the interest priority value of the given object inthe collection for the accessing individual is further automaticallycalculated based on similarity of the given object to other objects inthe collection previously read by the accessing individual, such thatthe interest priority value of the given object is automaticallydecreased as the similarity of the given object to other objects in thecollection previously accessed by the accessing individual increases. 3.The method of claim 1, further comprising: wherein the interest priorityvalue of the given object in the collection for the accessing individualis further automatically calculated based on the number of individualsin a group to which the accessing individual does not belong that haveaccessed the given object, such that the interest priority value of thegiven object is automatically increased as the number of individuals inthe group to which the accessing individual does not belong that haveread the given object increases.
 4. The method according to claim 1,further including the step of periodically updating the interestpriority value of at least one object.
 5. The method of claim 4, whereinthe step of periodically updating the interest priority value operatesin response to accesses of the at least one object.
 6. The method ofclaim 4, wherein the step of periodically updating the interest priorityvalue operates in response to accesses of other objects in thecollection.
 7. The method of claim 4, wherein the step of periodicallyupdating the interest priority value operates in response to a time outperiod.
 8. The method of claim 4, wherein the step of periodicallyupdating the interest priority value operates in response to an additionof an object from the collection.
 9. The method of claim 4, wherein thestep of periodically updating the interest priority value operates inresponse to a deletion of an object from the collection.
 10. The methodof claim 1, further including the step of representing the interestpriority values of a set of the objects in the collection to theaccessing individual.
 11. The method of claim 10, wherein the step ofrepresenting includes displaying the interest priority values of the setof objects on a visual display.
 12. The method according to claim 1,wherein the at least one attribute is a temporal attribute of theobject.
 13. The method of claim 12, wherein the collection of objectsincludes both accessed and unaccessed objects, and the temporalattribute is associated an unaccessed objects and indicates an elapsedtime since the unaccessed object joined the collection.
 14. The methodof claim 12, wherein the collection of objects includes both accessedand unaccessed objects, and the temporal attribute is associated with anaccessed object and indicates an elapsed period of time since theaccessed object was accessed by the accessing individual.
 15. The methodof claim 1, wherein the at least one attribute is a similarity attributeof the object.
 16. The method according to claim 15, wherein thecollection of objects includes both accessed and unaccessed objects, andwherein the similarity attribute is associated with an unaccessed objectfor indicating a similarity between the unaccessed object and otherobjects in the collection.
 17. The method of claim 15, wherein thecollection of objects includes both accessed and unaccessed objects, andwherein the similarity attribute is associated with an unaccessed objectfor indicating a similarity between the unaccessed object and otheraccessed objects in the collection.
 18. The method of claim 1, whereinthe at least one attribute is a source attribute of the object.
 19. Themethod of claim 18, wherein the collection of objects includes accessedand unaccessed comments, and wherein the source attribute is associatedwith an unaccessed object and indicates an importance of a source of theunaccessed object.
 20. The method of claim 19, where the source is anidentifier of an author of the unaccessed object.
 21. The method ofclaim 19, wherein the source is an identifier of a person who added theobject to the collection.
 22. The method of claim 1, wherein theaccessing individual is a member of a group of accessing individuals,and the at least one attribute is a group attribute of the object. 23.The method of claim 22, wherein the group attribute indicates how manymembers of the group other than the accessing individual have accessedthe associated object.
 24. The method of claim 22, wherein associatedwith each member of the group attribute is an identity attribute, andwherein the group attribute indicates whether members of the grouphaving predetermined identity attributes have accessed the associatedobject.
 25. A computer program product comprising: a computer readablestorage media; and program code stored on the computer readable storagemedia for calculating an interest priority value for each object in acollection of objects responsive to at least one attribute of theassociated object, wherein each interest priority value indicates arelative importance of the corresponding object to an accessingindividual compared to other objects in the collection, wherein theinterest priority value of a given object in the collection for theaccessing individual is automatically calculated based on the number ofother individuals in a group to which the accessing individual belongsthat have accessed the given object, such that the interest priorityvalue of the given object is automatically decreased as the number ofother individuals in the group to which the accessing individual belongsthat have read the given object increases; and program code stored onthe computer readable storage media for storing each interest priorityvalue in a database.
 26. A computer processing system comprising: acomputer readable storage media; program code stored on the computerreadable storage media for calculating an interest priority value foreach object in a collection of objects responsive to at least oneattribute of the associated object, wherein each interest priority valueindicates a relative importance of the corresponding object to anaccessing individual compared to other objects in the collection,wherein the interest priority value of a given object in the collectionfor the accessing individual is automatically calculated based on thenumber of other individuals in a group to which the accessing individualbelongs that have accessed the given object, such that the interestpriority value of the given object is automatically decreased as thenumber of other individuals in the group to which the accessingindividual belongs that have read the given object increases; andprogram code stored on the computer readable storage media for storingeach interest priority value in a database.
 27. A system comprising:means for calculating an interest priority value for each object in acollection of objects responsive to at least one attribute of theassociated object, wherein each interest priority value indicates arelative importance of the corresponding object to an accessingindividual compared to other objects in the collection, wherein theinterest priority value of a given object in the collection for theaccessing individual is automatically calculated based on the number ofother individuals in a group to which the accessing individual belongsthat have accessed the given object, such that the interest priorityvalue of the given object is automatically decreased as the number ofother individuals in the group to which the accessing individual belongsthat have read the given object increases; and means for storing eachinterest priority value in a database.